Learn more about The Passage:

"Every so often a novel-reader''s novel comes along: an enthralling, entertaining story wedded to simple, supple prose, both informed by tremendous imagination. Summer is the perfect time for such books, and this year readers can enjoy the gift of Justin Cronin''s "The Passage." It has the vividness that only epic works of fantasy and imagination can achieve. What else can I say? This: Read this book and the ordinary world disappears."--Stephen King.

From the Publisher:Rendered a latest test subject in a covert government experiment, abandoned 6-year-old Amy is rescued by an FBI agent who hides them in the Oregon hills, from which she emerges a century later to save the human race from a terrifying virus. (science fiction). By the award-winning author of Mary and O'Neil.

Annotation:Justin Cronin posits a horrific post-apocalyptic scenario in which a military experiment implodes producing a breed of timeless blood-sucking creatures that ravages the United States, decimating the population. Light is one of the only things that can keep the vamps, or virals, at bay, and a desperate colony of survivors forms, their lives barely protected each night by huge light array. Amidst this chaos, renegade FBI agent Brad Wolgast has rescued the young Amy Harper Bellafonte from the military human-experiment base. Somehow she has survived: she is cursed with the virals' eternal life-after-death, but blessedly she has none of their need for blood. Amy might just hold the secret to salvation in this god-forsaken land, but only if she can survive long enough for the answers to emerge. PASSAGE is the first book in a proposed trilogy, and upon its publication, it was immediately optioned for the big screen.

Praise

"[I]t's possible to write a novel that revels in narrative momentum and pop mythos while still honoring the textures of real people, places and things. In fact, the novelist who can successfully fuse these two seemingly opposed strains of contemporary fiction can often win a large, devout audience....Cronin has set his sights on that peculiarly American genre best epitomized by Stephen King's THE STAND. [But] Cronin's novel isn't about the clash between good and evil, but about humanity's struggle to forge a better world in spite of our own worst mistakes." - Laura Miller 06/06/2010

"The writing quality is really what makes the novel worth reading. Whole sections of THE PASSAGE could be plucked out of the book and inserted into a Best New Horror anthology. Cronin's insight into human nature provides a neat contrast to all the spewing blood...." - Todd VanDerWerff 06/03/2010